PBO’s budget battle seeks transparency on Tories’ spending cuts

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, in his last week on the job, is taking the government to court in a bid to have Ottawa release information about the impacts on federal jobs and services from $5.2 billion in cuts announced in last year's budget.

OTTAWA — As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty delivers the federal budget Thursday in the House of Commons, the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer will deliver arguments in court seeking clarity on its mandate and more information on the Conservative government’s spending cuts.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, in his last week on the job, is taking the government to court in a bid to have Ottawa release information about the impacts on federal jobs and services from $5.2 billion in cuts announced in last year’s budget.

Questions and criticism have been mounting from multiple fronts about the Harper government’s transparency and accountability on its spending decisions and budget cuts.

The PBO’s budget battle has dragged on nearly a year, as it looks to extract more information from dozens of federal departments and agencies.

“Almost a year after the 2012 budget, Conservatives still haven’t given clear answers about which regions of the country will lose federal jobs or what services are going to be cut. Canadians deserve to know the truth about the government’s plans,” NDP finance critic Peggy Nash said Wednesday in the House of Commons.

She called on the government to clearly outline the impacts on jobs and services of any potential cuts in Thursday’s budget, as the Conservatives chip away at an estimated $26-billion deficit.

On Wednesday — while trying on a new pair of budget shoes in Toronto — he said the blueprint will “try to create that balance” between promoting economic growth and balancing the books by 2015.

Canadians will have to wait until Thursday for more details, yet the budget officer is still trying to obtain information from spending cuts in last year’s document.

The PBO has asked the Federal Court to clarify its mandate and whether it has jurisdiction to access details — requested by NDP Leader Tom Mulcair — of the $5.2 billion in budget reductions over the next few years.

Page says it’s within the PBO’s mandate to review the impacts of cuts contained in the budget. The Conservative government argues Page has overstepped his bounds and that the PBO’s job is to review federal expenditures, not dollars it has decided not to spend.

Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said the government is trying to persuade Canadians that it’s a prudent economic manager, when it’s actually trying to hide what’s unfolding in Canada, including sluggish growth, huge deficits and major government cuts.

“So much of the propaganda machine of the Conservatives has been an effort to conceal what’s really happening,” Rae told reporters Wednesday.

Earlier this month, two former senior officials in the finance department assailed the Conservative government for eroding the “integrity and credibility” of federal budgets through what they argued is a system of secrecy that keeps parliamentarians and Canadians in the dark about how federal dollars are spent.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Flaherty accused the two former finance officials of being Liberal partisans whose opinions are biased.

In their scathing critique, former bureaucrats Scott Clark and Peter DeVries lambasted the Harper government for keeping internal budget records secret, picking a fight with the PBO, and introducing omnibus budget bills that are “a disgrace and an insult to Parliament and to Canadians.”

A major concern, they said, is that annual department spending estimates are now introduced in Parliament before the budget, making them less accurate and forcing MPs to blindly vote on billions of dollars of expenditures.

The government, however, notes that more detailed spending plans and data are released later in the budget year, through department reports on plans and priorities, supplementary estimates and the annual public accounts.

The Conservative government will incorporate several online initiatives this year — including live-streaming Flaherty’s budget speech in the Commons — to showcase major budget items and help Canadians better navigate the document.

Finance Canada will also use its Twitter account to chronicle Flaherty’s budget day and link to web pages featuring details on the budget, dubbed Economic Action Plan 2013.

“This year, we are also developing a variety of new products that will make the information easier to understand for average Canadians,” Flaherty said in a news release.

Ian Lee, an assistant professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business in Ottawa, who regularly writes about federal spending, said the finance department “has always been tighter than tight” with its information, including during the Liberal government.

He disagrees with the government’s assessment that Page is partisan, but also believes “it was a bridge too far” for the PBO to take the government to court.

However, there remains a lot of room for improvement on financial reporting and disclosing details of expenditure cuts, he said, including tabling the budget before department spending estimates.

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Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, in his last week on the job, is taking the government to court in a bid to have Ottawa release information about the impacts on federal jobs and services from $5.2 billion in cuts announced in last year's budget.

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